"Brit-Am Now"-994
Contents:
1. Brit-Am Survey: Summaries and Intermediate Conclusions, A1. to 6.
2. "Lost Israelite Identity.
The Hebrew Origin of Celtic Races"
again in stock
3. Article: "Dan and the Serpent Way.
Dan in Northern Israel, Greece, and Elsewhere"
4. Hebrew Types: More Pictures
5. "Bravo to Rachael!"
6. Jonathan Tillotson:
Historical Explanations for a Feeling of Community and Lack of it.
7. Descendants of Ephraim Amongst the Jews of Morocco?
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1. Brit-Am Survey
http://www.britam.org/Survey.html
Summaries and Intermediate Conclusions have been posted up to Question A.1
to A.6
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2. "Lost Israelite
Identity.
The Hebrew Origin of Celtic Races"
again in stock
Limited quanitity.
http://www.britam.org/Identity.html
Order now, $30.
Order now and you will receive an invaluable source of information
that may not be available for so long and not long ago was not available at all.
What is more you will be helping Brit-Am with an input of funds that is needed.
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3. Article: "Dan
and the Serpent Way.
Dan in Northern Israel, Greece, and Elsewhere"
http://britam.org/dan3.html
Veteran readers will no doubt notice that this article is actually only an
editing
and improved presentation of information that was already available on our site.
Nevertheless it is worth reading.
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4. Hebrew Types:
More Pictures
http://britam.org/HebrewTypes8.html
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5. "Bravo to
Rachael!"
Bravo to Rachael in her opinion! I too agree that different
opinions aired whether agreeable or not, keep things interesting. I have found
in my own research and reading books that there can be some truth even in the
most bizarre theories and if you have the discerning spirit of a true Israelite,
then you can glean some other piece of the puzzle out of mire. So it is true of
what others submit. Some of what they may state, might be bunk, but if there's a
thread of truth woven within, then we can take that thread and weave it into our
puzzle and have more of the picture needed to form the truth as a whole. Again,
I truly believe one must be open minded to what is out there. Take what is truth
and file the rest away for possible future reference.
Blessings, michelle b.
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6. Jonathan
Tillotson:
Historical Explanations for a Feeling of Community and Lack of it.
Subject: Re: "Brit-Am Now"-993
#2. Americanization, Individualism, and Joseph
I agree with Ms Jan that the individual tendencies in Joseph can be exaggerated,
and that a true, healthy individualism mainly refers to freedom from state and
ideological domination, not freedom of the specific individual person from
connection with family and community.
Nonethelesss I would suggest that because Judah has not lost his identity and
knows who he is this may have contributed to an enhanced sense of collective
identity over Joseph. Also, though the reason for it be regrettable, I think its
true to say that persecution in the face of an enemy (unless that persecution
succeed in destroying the persecuted people altogether) tends often to enhance
the persecuted people?s sense of identity and togetherness. Jews have always
been persecuted by non-Jews (Israelites or not) and they have always needed to
stick together to survive in the face of that. Unfortunately for the Jews, that
distinct cohesive identity has then often in turn increased the unjustifiable
persecution since it is a common human trait not to like strange or different
people in your midst (especially if they are successful strange people, as Jews
have often been). Such persecution in turn increases the sense of communal
identity further and so on.
Joseph, since his Assyrian captitvity, (am I mistaken?) has spent most of the
past 2,700 years in a relative degree of prosperity and affluence. I talk
relative to the rest of the world and I am ignoring class distinctions within
Jospehite nations. He has also had his own lands with the ensuing blessings of
territorial dignity etc. While that has encouraged feelings of satisfaction with
his own achievements, which have enhanced communal feelings of identity, the
identity has formally been non-Israelite and various. A thought might be; Joseph
(read all ten tribes) thinks very well that he knows who he is, but he only
knows the surface, not the depths. He is right that he is English, Welsh,
Scottish, Scandinavian, French, American, South African, Australian, New Zealand
etc, but wrong to think that is the end of it and that he might not also be
Israelite at a layer of historical reality beneath that.
Josephite peoples then have always felt in their differing ways a strong bond to
their new ?post Israelite? nationalities, which in their own ways have protected
these new communal expressions of identity in the face of foreign threat, from
southern continental Europe for example. For the most part ignorance of
Israelite ancestry seems to have featured, amongst most of the populations
anyway. Whether or not pride in being English, Welsh, Australian etc might
actually pose an obstacle in the way of embracing a deeper Israelite identity,
I?m not sure about. Possibly it will do if by ?Israel? is understood to mean
only Jewishness (which is usually the case). I have encountered anti-semitism
amongst Englishmen, though it has tended to be more sneering, untrusting and
condescending than malicious or hateful as such. The kind that is often more
theoretical than practical (e.g these same people might actually have Jewish
friends). One gets the impression that they wouldn?t want to embrace an
Israelite identity if that meant they ?had to become Jews? or be Jewish. But
probably they hadn?t even imagined the idea that there might be something more
to being an Israelite than being Jewish, because as we know these ideas that
Brit Am speaks of are not even known about, even as a hypothesis, at the level
of public discourse. And one suspects that if they were voiced, even a glimmer
of them, one suspects, they?d be ridiculed back into invisibility as little
other than mad (as well as, potentially if not necessarily politically
incorrect).
Beyond this I think individuality has generally increased in the advanced
nations of western Europe in the last few centuries, and then derivatively in
the US, Canada and Australia, on account of the socially fragmenting effects of
the industrial revolution. This I think is a fair observation that I don?t think
you have to be a Marxist to accept. The social mobility of labour, moving from
the settled traditions of hundreds of years of agricultural life into the
cramped, frenetic environment of big cities, the division of labour, the
enhanced ability for ambitious individuals to get richer and rise away from
their social origins, as well as to emigrate to other lands?all these
developments (for good or ill) have worked I am sure to fragment and deracinate
families and communities. My strong suspicion is that this social development
has been less witnessed in Jewish communities, both because economically they
were for a long time treated differently by the authorities, but also because
their overriding religious and cultural sense of ethnic identity could often
prove strong enough in many cases to counteract those fragmentary pressures.
While this didn?t prevent the development of the 19th century assimilationist
movement within Jewish communities, I suspect it worked to prevent its success.
Resurgent racist, biological anti-semitism however, also played its part in
reminding Jews who wanted to become gentiles that they were not going to be
allowed to make that change.
A final point: It is interesting to speculate how much the internet, cheap
phonecalls and cheap travel, have worked and are working to counteract the
divisive social effects of social mobility that are still ongoing as people
continue to roam far and wide in search of work. Peoples separated by geography,
as they have been for centuries are now able, as they never have been before, to
overcome that separation.
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7. Descendants of
Ephraim Amongst the Jews of Morocco?
From: Yoel Kramsky
BS"D
Sholoim Aleichem Yair:
Some Moroccans have a tradition that they are from Ephraim. Do you know
anything about this. I did a search on your web site and I didn't find
anything of the sort.
Kol tuv,
Yoel
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Reply:
In our book, "Lost Israelite Identity" Chapter Seventeen,
THE ISRAELITE AND NORTH AFRICAN LINKS OF THE INSULAR CELTS IN THE LIGHT OF
LINGUISTICS.
The Question of Alphabetical Lettering.
The first paragraph begins:
<< The Irish legends are compatible with Israelite origins. They
presuppose having originally come from the Middle East AND often speak of
arriving in Spain via North Africa. A Moroccan Jewish legend1 says that when the
Ten tribes were exiled part of the tribe of Ephraim reached Morocco. They ruled
over the land until the time of Ezra (ca.457-445 BCE) at which period their rule
was lost. In many respects North Africa and Spain in early times were often
effectually one entity.
The Reference no.1 is to:
REUBEN KASHANI, "The Ten Tribes" (Hebrew), 1984, Jerusalem, p.29.
Also some of the Jews from Tunisia (it was claimed up to 20% of all the
families)
have a tradition that they are from the Tribe of Zebulon.
Shortly after we first published "The Tribes" I was confronted by a big muscular
blond blue-eyed
"Viking" type. He was a Jew from Tunis in North Africa and somewhat indignant
that we had identified the
Dutch as Zebulon and neglected his own tradition.
Quite a few Jews from Tunis actually look more Dutch than the Dutchmen.
I was once invited to a celebration and was surprised at the large number of
natural "blondes" (both
men and women) arriving. I thought to myself that they must be from Germany and
that I did not
think German Jews usually looked so much like Scandinavians. It turned out that
they all belonged
to the Tunisian Jewish community and many were related to the Tunisian Jewish
family whose guest I was.
Whatever the case this is neither here nor there.
If you look at the article on our site,
"The Completeness of the Exile. Answers to Deniers of
Brit-Am Biblical Truth"
http://www.britam.org/CompleteExile.html
You will find that there is an opinion that small representative portions of
all the Tribes
returned to Judah but they were destined to subsumed in Judah (see also
Nachmanides on this
matter
http://www.britam.org/Nachmanides.html
The Tribal expression of the Lost Ten Tribes (says Nachmanides) is to be
achieved amongst the
majority of the Tribe in the place of exile.
It may be that a few families from one or other of the Tribes remained in Judah
and managed to stick
together after being exiled. 2000 years gives a lot of time for any little group
to become a larger one.
Even so these various traditions do not contradict the Brit-Am understanding.
On the contrary after close examination they confirm it.
There also exists the phenomenon of members of the Lost Ten Tribes converting
and re-attaching themselves
to Judah like the Khazars did and like thousands of others have done throughout
history though this is not publicized.
Nevertheless the Tribal expression of those Tribes that comprise the Lost Ten
Tribes is to be found in the forces of "Joseph".
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